Threading the Eye of the Needle: Designing the Next Generation of Crop Protection Solutions in an Increasingly Deglobalized Regulatory Landscape.

The growing global needs for food and feed and the impact of climate change on agriculture demand innovative and sustainable solutions to protect against crop losses and to improve yields worldwide. To facilitate the timely discovery and development of new sustainable crop protection products with favorable human health and environmental safety profiles, the development of new approach methodologies (NAMs) is essential to predict potential risk and to perform safety assessment early in the discovery process. Significant advances in NAM research have been made in recent years. We have organized a Virtual Special Issue and invited submissions of seven high-quality research articles and reviews on the latest advances in emerging NAMs for predictive safety assessment in agrochemical research and development. Here we provide an introductory overview of the need of innovation and research for the development of novel agricultural solutions and highlight findings from each invited article in this special edition.